Laughing And Sneering

What though the world does me ill turns
And cares my life environ;
Id sooner laugh with Bobbie Burns
Than sneer with titled Byron.

The smile has always been the best;
Tis stronger than the frown, sirs:
And Venus smiled the waves to rest;
She didnt sneer them down, sirs.

Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson was an Australian writer and poet. Along with Banjo Paterson, he is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period and is often called Australia's 'greatest short story writer'. His works frequently document the lives and struggles of rural and outback Australians. Lawson's own life was marked by hardship and struggles including impaired hearing and financial difficulties, which influenced his realist depictions of Australian life. Some of his notable works include 'While the Billy Boils' and 'In the Days When the World was Wide.'

Henry Lawson

The Old Mile-Tree

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The King Of Our Republic

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Fire At Ross's Farm

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Ships That Won't Go Down

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Sorrows Of A Simple Bard

When I tell a tale of virtue and of injured innocence,
Then my publishers and lawyers are the densest of the dense:
With the blank face of an image and the nod of keep-it-dark
And a wink of mighty meaning at their confidential clerk.

(When, Oh! tell me when shall poets cease to be misunderstood?
When, Oh! When? shall people reckon rhymers can be any good?
Do their work and pay their debts and drink their pint of beer, and then,
Look in womans eyes and leave them, just like ordinary men?)

Is there literary friendship twix the sexes? dont you think?
And they wink their idiotic and exasperating wink.
Cant we kiss a clever woman without wanting any more?
And their clock-work nod is only more decided than before.

But if I should hint that theres a little wom...

Henry Lawson

And What Have You To Say

I mind the days when ladies fair
Helped on my overcoat,
And tucked the silken handkerchief
About my precious throat;
They used to see the poets soul
In every song I wrote.

They pleaded hard, but I had work
To do, and could not stay
I used to work the whole night through,
And what have you to say?

Twas clever, handsome woman then,
And I their rising star;
I could not see they worshipped me,
Because I saw too far.
(Tis well for one or two, I think,
That things are as they are.)

(I used to write for writings sake,
I used to write till day,
I loved my prose and poetry,
And what have you to say?)

I guess if one should meet me now
That she would gasp to think,
She ever knew a thing like me,
As down the s...

Henry Lawson

The Peace Maker

It has a point of neither sex
But comes in guise of both,
And, doubly dangerous complex,
It is a thing to loathe,
A lady with her sweet, sad smile,
A gentleman on oath.

Strip off the mother-veil, and fur!
And signs of quiet taste.
The dead childs locket take from her
(The dead mans gift in haste)
And wash from every evil line
The layers of filling paste!

From saddened eyes the hells own glare!
From sweet mouth blasphemy!
Wrench out the gold-filled false teeth there
That twice mock honesty,
And leave the evil face awry
For married folk to see.

For foolish girl wives in despair,
For mens and childrens sakes,
Let loose the glossed and padded hair
To writhe like scorching snakes!
And strip the barren bod...

Henry Lawson

Smiles.

There is the warm, congenial smile,
    Benign, and honest, too,
Free from deception, fraud, and guile;
    The smile of friendship true.

There is the smile most fair to see,
Which wreathes the modest glance
Of spotless maiden purity;
    The smile of innocence.

There is the smile of woman's love,
    That potent, siren spell,
Which uplifts men to heaven above,
    Or lures them down to hell!

There is the vain, derisive smile,
    Of cynical conceit;
The drunken leer, the grimace vile,
    Of lives with crime replete.

There is the smile of vacancy,
    Expressionless, we find
On idiot physiognomy,
    The vacuum of a mind.

There is a smile, which more than tears
    Or language can express;
The grim d...

Alfred Castner King

To Victor Daly

I thought that silence would be best,
But I a call have heard,
And, Victor, after all the rest,
I well might say a word:
The day and work is nearly done,
And ours the victory,
And we are resting, one by one,
In graveyards by the sea.

But then you talked of other nights,
When, gay from dusk to dawn,
You wasted hours with other lights
That went where you have gone.
You spoke not of the fair and fast,
But of the pure and true,
Sweet ugly women of the past
Who stood so well by you.

You made a jest on that last night,
I met it with a laugh:
You wondered which of us should write
The others epitaph.
We filled the glasses to the brim,
The lands own wine you know,
And solemnly we drank to him
Who should be first to...

Henry Lawson

The Afterglow

Oh, for the fire that used to glow
In those my days of old!
I never thought a man could grow
So callous and so cold.
Ah, for the heart that used to ache
For those in sorrows ways;
I often wish my heart could break
As it did in those dead days.

Along my track of storm and stress,
And it is plain to trace,
I look back from the loneliness
And the depth of my disgrace.
Twas fate and only fate I know,
But all mistakes are plain,
Tis sadder than the afterglow,
More dreary than the rain.

But still there lies a patch of sun
That neer will come again,
Those golden days when I was one
Of Natures gentlemen.
And if there is a memory
Could break me down at last,
It sure would be the thought of this,
The sunshine in the pa...

Henry Lawson